HONOLULU (AP) — A relic of the nun who succeeded Father Damien in caring for leprosy patients exiled to a Molokai settlement is returning to the Hawaiian islands from New York state, the Diocese of Honolulu said Thursday.

The relic of Blessed Marianne Cope was set to stop in Molokai, Maui, Lanai, Kauai and the Big Island before going on permanent display in a Honolulu cathedral. She is one of five so-called Blesseds in the country, the diocese said.

Bishop Larry Silva of the Diocese of Honolulu requested the relic — bone fragments from Mother Marianne's remains — from the Sisters of Saint Francis in Syracuse. Sister Patricia Burkard, general minister of the Sisters of Saint Francis, is to bring the bone fragments, which were checked for authenticity by a forensic anthropologist, to Hawaii on Wednesday.

First-class relics are parts of a saint's or beatified person's body, usually bone or hair, the diocese said.

Mother Marianne cared for Hansen's disease patients at the Kalaupapa settlement on Molokai in 1888, five months after the death of Father Damien, who gained sainthood in 2009.

She died on Kalaupapa in 1918 of natural causes and was buried there. In 2004, Pope John Paul II declared her "venerable," the first step toward canonization.

The Vatican recognizes her intercession for the unexplained cure of a New York girl dying of multiple organ failure. The Vatican must authenticate another miracle for her to be declared a saint.

The small mahogany box that holds the relic is etched with plumeria flowers. The reliquary is to be displayed in a koa wood case in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu.

"To those of us who venerate the first-class relic of Blessed Marianne, it is not the bone fragments themselves that are meaningful, but who they were part of and what they represent, said Sister Davilyn Ah Chick, principal of Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in Ewa Beach.